1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method and system for analyzing trends in an information aggregate. More particularly, it relates to identifying and visualizing founders of such an aggregate.
2. Background
Corporations are flooded with information. The Web is a huge and sometimes confusing source of external information which only adds to the body of information generated internally by a corporation's collaborative infrastructure (e-Mail, Notes databases, QuickPlaces, and so on). With so much information available, it is difficult to determine what information is sufficiently important to access. In fact, it is so difficult to search through all of this information that individuals looking for information will often rely on the people around them for help, rather than spend time struggling with computer-based search engines. If a person is known to have expertise in a particular area, the individual looking for information will simply call that expert and ask questions, and so find their answers much quicker.
A well-developed network of connections to other people, then, can improve the effectiveness of an individual. On the other hand, an individual's effectiveness can then be limited by the number of people in the network that can be easily found.
The Lotus Discovery Server (LDS) is a Knowledge Management (KM) tool that allows users to more rapidly locate the people and information they need to answer their questions. It categorizes information from many different sources (referred to generally as knowledge repositories) and provides a coherent entry point for a user seeking information. Moreover, as users interact with LDS and the knowledge repositories that it manages, LDS can learn what the users of the system consider important by observing how users interact with knowledge resources. Thus, it becomes easier for users to quickly locate relevant information.
The focus of LDS is to provide specific knowledge or answers to localized inquiries; focusing users on the documents and categories that can answer their questions. There is a need, however, to also identify people who might be able to answer questions. The LDS associates people with categories, thereby providing one way of finding people. But there is a need for additional ways to identify people who have a particular expertise.